Smuggle Truck

The Story

Smuggle Truck was inspired by the frustration our friends have experienced in trying to immigrate to the United States. With such a troublesome issue being largely avoided in popular media, especially video games, we felt the best way to criticize it was with an interactive satire.

In Smuggle Truck, players are driving a truck with passengers in the back, bringing them over a fictional border. This idea originated as a result of learning that the process of legal immigration was not as straightforward as we had assumed. As we lived through a painful 12 months of our friend struggling through the absurd legal minefield that surrounds U.S. immigration, we felt that we should create a game that touches on the issue. The comment was thrown around that "it's so tough to legally immigrate to the U.S., it's almost easier to smuggle yourself over the border", and thus Smuggle Truck was born. A two-day prototype eventually turned into an iPhone game, with the plan to reach as many players as possible.

Throughout the creation of the game, we maintained a meticulous eye to avoid depicting stereotypes and specific locales. Through user testing and feedback from fellow developers and even random strangers, we worked to represent the game in a more abstracted form.

With a satirical angle on a real issue, we want to create a game that is fun to play but also stirs up discussion on ways to improve the problematic immigration system in the United States.